Public Spheres in Private Spaces: How Capital Will Stop the Web’s Democratic Potential

Authors

  • Kyle Brown McMaster University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15173/mjc.v10i0.282

Keywords:

Internet, democracy, capital, public sphere, social networking, speech, ownership, network society,

Abstract

In the late 1990s and into the early part of the new millennium, the vast, open, seemingly free space of the Internet allowed for many communication and political science scholars to bask in the optimism of a new communication system that would allow for increased debate, deliberation, and flow of information (Kellner, 1998). Notable scholars like Castells (1996) and Benkler (2006) led the charge of conversation in regards to the network society, and the democratizing impacts that such communication technologies could potentially provide. More recently, Internet optimists, like Shirky (2008, 2011), have expressed the role that digital technologies, mostly in terms of the Internet, can have in allowing for widespread democratizing communication, social movements and political action in its ability to organize and mobilize individuals, both in online discussion spaces, and in the “real” world.

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Published

2014-03-13